And slow, as in a dream of bliss, Upon the darkening walls. As if a door in heaven should be The light shone and was spent. On England's annals, through the long That light its rays shall cast A lady with a Lamp shall stand Nor even shall be wanting here Saint Filomena bore. THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE. A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS. OTHERE, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, His figure was tall and stately, His hair was yellow as hay, Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the colour of oak; And Alfred, King of the Saxons, And wrote down the wondrous tale Into the Arctic seas. "So far I live to the northward, To the east are wild mountain-chains, "So far I live to the northward, From the harbour of Skeringes-hale, If you only sailed by day, With a fair wind all the way, More than a month would "I own six hundred reindeer, you With sheep and swine beside; "I ploughed the land with horses, With their sagas of the seas;— "Of Iceland and of Greenland, For thinking of those seas. "To the northward stretched the desert, How far I fain would know; So at last I sallied forth, And three days sailed due north, "To the west of me was the ocean, But I did not slacken sail For the walrus or the whale, Till after three days more "The days grew longer and longer, ' Till they became as one, And southward through the haze Of the red midnight sun. “And then uprose before me, "The sea was rough and stormy, The tempest howled and wailed, And the sea-fog, like a ghost, Haunted that dreary coast; But onward still I sailed. "Four days I steered to eastward, Four days without a night: Round in a fiery ring Went the great sun, O King, Here Alfred, King of the Saxons, Aut Othere, the old sea-captain, And wrote down every word. "And now the land," said Othere, And I followed the curving shore Into a nameless sea. "And there we hunted the walrus, "There were six of us all together, In two days and no more We killed of them threescore, And dragged them to the strand!" Here Alfred the Truth-Teller With doubt and strange surmise And Othere, the old sea-captain, And to the King of the Saxons, Raising his noble head, He stretched his brown hand, and said, "Behold this walrus-tooth!" |